Giant Shift Current in Electrically-Tunable Superlattice Bilayer Graphene

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that Bernal-stacked bilayer graphene with a superlattice potential exhibits a giant shift current, significantly larger than in other twisted multilayer systems, with tunable properties via gate voltage and superlattice parameters.

Contribution

It reveals the giant shift current response in superlattice bilayer graphene and explores how to optimize it through electrostatic and lattice-twisting methods.

Findings

Giant shift current observed in superlattice bilayer graphene

Shift current magnitude is tunable by gate voltage and superlattice parameters

Response exceeds that of existing twisted multilayer systems

Abstract

Recent introduction of superlattice potentials has opened new avenues for engineering tunable electronic band structures featuring topologically nontrivial moir\'{e}-like bands. Here we consider optoelectronic properties of Bernal-stacked graphene subjected to a superlattice potential either electrostatically or through lattice twisting to show that it exhibits a giant shift current response that is orders of magnitude larger than existing predictions in twisted mulitlayer systems. Effects of gate voltage and the strength and phase of the superlattice potential on the shift current are delineated systematically across various topological regimes. Our study gives insight into the nature of nonlinear responses of materials and how these responses could be optimized by tuning the superlattice potential.